Botany Activities and Lesson Plans

Web interactive activities: Botany

State Symbols Web Exhibit and Game

Play a State Symbols Identification Game and learn about all the Illinois State symbols.

Web-available Lesson Plans: Botany

Botanical Illustration in Watercolor Lesson Plan pdf

Observe plants, make detailed drawings, and then create a watercolor painting based on the principles of botanical illustration.

Botanical Illustration Using Painter Classic Software Lesson pdf

Use the tools in Painter Classic with the Wacom pad and stylus to create botanical paintings.

Botanical Illustration with Plant Studio Freeware Lesson pdf

Use Plant Studio freeware to create virtual plants in a wizard, choosing the parameters for each plant part. Also breed new generations of plants.

Create a Classroom Herbarium Lesson Plan pdf

Collect leaves, identify them, and preserve them according to Herbarium procedures. Display the collection or store them for study.

Forest Layers Lesson (Elementary) pdf

Study the layers of a forest, from the canopy to the litter, and create a landscape painting that reflects your knowledge.

Forest Layers Lesson (Middle School) pdf

Analyse the layers of the different types of forests in Illinois as to their characteristics of height, density, moisture, and soils. The Museum's Forests of Illinois Web Module contains a panorama of each type of forest occurring in Illinois. The Forest Layers image shows each layer.

Forests as Inspiration for Literature Lesson Plan pdf

Authors have been inspired by forests; folk tales and fairy tales contain themes about forests. Use this lesson as a guide to literature on this theme.

Forms for Exhibit Creation Lessons

In the Classroom Exhibit lesson for the Behind the Scenes module, students can print out and use forms to keep records of the objects or specimens they are planning to exhibit.

Freehand Computer-aided Botanical Illustration Lesson Plan

Lesson plan for grade 6 and up using Freehand software to paint botanicals

Identifying Plants in Works of Art Lesson Plan pdf

Many works of art contain subject matter of plants or plant symbolism. Identify the plants and their possible meanings in five ISM works of fine and decorative art.

Interpreting a Pollen Graph Lesson pdf

Scientists make graphs from their research findings. These graphs tell us trends, changes, and other information.

Introductory Teacher Orientation to MuseumLink Lesson Plans

Leaf Collection Lesson Plan, Herbarium

Lesson plan for upper elementary to lower secondary students on collecting and preserving leaves

Leaf Collection Lesson, MuseumLink

Collect, identify, and preserve leaves from your community. Use the Museum's online tree guide.

Native American Dye Plants Lesson

Learn how to create fabric dyes from natural substances in onion skins, walnuts, and flowers the way Native Americans and early settlers did. Dyed cloth can be used to make a prairie quilt (see lesson plan) or garment, or dye samples notebook.

Native American Foods and Recipes

Students can plan a weeks meals based on wild and cultivated resources available to a Mississippian farmstead in the early summer based on information provided in The Mississippian Saga of ISM's River Web module. An extension activity would be for students to cook a recipe using these ingredients.

Go to RiverWeb, Mississippian, Economy Activities, and scroll to the bottom and click on the pdf link. 

Prairie Imagist Poem Lesson Plan pdf

Use the online source to study imagist poetry, then learn about a prairie plant or animal and write an imagist poem about it.

Prairie Plant Adaptation Lesson Plan

Examine prairie plants to discover what physical adaptations help them survive in their environment. Use the online prairie flower guide.

Prairie Quilt Lesson Plan pdf

Create a cloth quilt or a digital quilt using scanned images of prairie life.

Someone's in the Kitchen

Learn about Native AMerican foods and find recipes you can make.